"Mill work never used you up," he said slowly.

"It's not work, sir. It's been right hot in town, and you know the city a ways stifles me."

"Umph!" said Markham.

After Matilda had gone to bed that evening Levi sat on the broad piazza with Sandy, while a late yellow-red moon rode majestically in the sky and lighted the dew-touched meadow land.

"Looks hot," Levi murmured; "hot and dry."

"Yes," agreed Sandy. Then quite suddenly Markham asked:

"Sandford, I wish you to tell me exactly why you wanted extra money this summer. I say wish, because I know I have no right to demand your confidence, but I do think I have a right to protect you against--well, against yourself when it comes to personal injury. You trusted me seven years ago with your confidence; you've talked pretty openly to me during your school and college years. Reports speak louder than words--but we've kept in touch with each other. I make no claims, but I'd like to think you know I am your friend."

Just then the moonlight shifted to Sandy's face and lay across it in brilliant clearness.

"I can tell you better to-night, sir, than I could have a week ago, for the need is past now. I have only kept it to myself because it has never seemed right that I should ask more of you than you offered to give--and this was my affair--mine alone."

"I see!" muttered Markham, and his jaw set, not with doubt of Sandy, but with detestation of the woman who earlier in the day had driven him to attack this boy's sacred privilege of independence and privacy.

"It began, sir, when I was in the midst of class work in June. I was having a particularly good time, you may remember, when, one night, a messenger came to my rooms and said some one wanted to see me near the gate of the Square. It was a girl, sir, though she looked a woman; a poor, sad, sick creature from my home--my half sister, Molly! I did not know her at first. She was right little and pretty when I last saw her, but cruelty and want had turned her into----"

Levi's eyes were riveted on the still, white face of the speaker, and his heart hurt him for very pity. He could not let the boy say the word.

"And she--what did she want?" he asked so sternly that Sandy, even with his reverence for Markham, took up arms in his sister's defence.

"Don't judge her harshly, sir; you do not know our hills. Molly was a mighty weak little girl, and when temptation came to her, she hadn't strength to resist, and they who should have defended her--sold her! I was not there, so I cannot be hard upon her, though she thought I meant to be at first. You see I was so shocked and surprised, and amid all the happenings I had almost forgotten. She threatened me, sir. It was right pitiful. She said every one was dead--her mother; our father----" Sandy's voice faltered--"she was alone. She hadn't forgotten her old ways either. You remember that I told you how as a little girl she had threatened the--the treasure under the rock beyond the Branch?" Markham nodded.

"Well--she threatened the treasure of to-day. She was for finding you out and begging--so--well, I bought her off! for I would not have you haggled and be made to repent your helping of me. I have kept her, sir, in a little room in a corner of Boston all summer. It was a neat and comfortable place, with a tree at the window. After a time she trusted me! At first it was hard for her to keep--well!--I reckon when one let's go as poor Molly did--it is right difficult to hold on long to a new and safer course. But--she died four days ago! She was alone, sir, with her head on the window sill; her poor little face set toward the tree. I had had a doctor for her--she had been feeling ill--it was heart trouble--she went without pain. I saw her buried to-day--some time in the future I am going to take her body to Lost Mountain. She'll really rest there, I reckon."

The moonlight passed from the white, tired face and Levi's aching eyes closed, taking the vision of Sandy with them. He recalled the boy's manner through the closing scenes of his college life; the outward calmness and grateful appreciation while the hideous trouble was eating the joy from the hours of triumph he had so bravely won. He reflected upon the following weeks of toil and lonely labour with that poor, dying girl in the background taking his life blood as once she had taken his hard-earned money. Then when he could bear no more Levi Markham got up and walked over to Sandy. He laid a trembling hand on his shoulder and by stern effort controlled his voice.

"My boy!" he murmured; "my--boy! words come hard; I'm not an easy talker--but--you and I are both tuckered out. I have never had a vacation in my life--a real vacation. I've always packed business and worry in my satchel. Will you come across the water with me, lad? Let us try to see if there is any play in us. Let's have a look at some regular mountains and some second-rate cities--and when we get back I want you to travel up to that tumble down Hollow you hailed from, and take my money along; we'll begin repairs at once--you bossing, I paying the bills. We'll set it going some--you and I! As to this trip abroad we'll take 'Tilda along to keep us straight and--and make us comfortable, Sandy!"

But Sandy's head was bowed on his clasped hands and the first tears he had shed in years were trickling through his fingers.

"You'll come, Sandy Morley?"

"Yes, sir."

"And--I want to tell you, my boy--that I'm satisfied with my flyer of an investment. Come! Come! You've acted the part of a man before you've been a boy. You and I have earned--a vacation."

An hour later Markham tapped at Matilda's door and the prompt, "Come in, Levi," caused him a moment's uneasiness.

"Insomnia?" he asked, drawing a chair close to his sister's bed.

"Just a little wakefulness, brother. Now don't get fidgetty. I'm real satisfied to lie here and think of my blessedness and comfort. It's gratifying to recall all your possessions in the night. They say worries stand out clearest then, but with me it's the other way. My troubles just vanish and every living, breathing pleasantness comes to the fore. Now, you, for example, Levi. I was praising God about you as you knocked. You're a changed man, brother. You were always a good man, but to be flat-footed I must say that there was a time when conversation with you was like jogging along over a stony road. One got so many bumps that it didn't seem worth while. I used to get terrible lonely at times, for I wouldn't take pleasures and leave you out--it always has seemed to me that you never got the _right_ change for what you spent, and I wanted to do my share in keeping you company if you ever felt the lack. And then that poor little fellow came tumbling into our lives same as if God had sent him rolling down the mountain to our door. If ever there was a blessing in disguise, it was Sandy! I tell you he's a pretty comforting creature to hold to when you lie awake nights. A minute ago I was saying over and over--"thank God for Sandy!" He gets closer to you than you think, Levi--it's his way and he's the strongest, gratefullest fellow. Every time I look at him lately I think of the saying--strength of the hills."

And now Levi sought and found the thin, blue-veined hands folded peacefully upon the white coverlid.

"Sandy found the starved mother and father in us, Matilda. His need met ours, and God blessed us all."

"That's a true word, brother. You and I were real pinched in our aims and longings in the offset. Do you remember how you always wanted learning and college, and how I actually was besotted about traipsing around the world? Such dreams as we managed to make up! I have the old geography now with pin points all up the side of the Alps where you and I counted the height and then said we didn't believe it! Well, you've found success without college, and I've found peace without travel."

Levi patted the cool, old hands tenderly. Sandy's story had somehow made Matilda very precious.

"But lands, Levi! We are all old children and go on with our foolish dreams till we're tucked in at last for good and all. Maybe I ought to be ashamed to own to this, but I lie here nights and actually make believe I'm Sandy's mother. Mother's an awful comforting word to women as well as children."

"Well, Matilda, I'll own up to the same side play." Levi laughed softly; "the night he graduated I closed my eyes and listened to him reading off that fine stuff and--for a spell I fathered him and got real thrilled. But what I came to say to you to-night, 'Tilda, is no dream unless you can class it as a dream come true. Beginning to-morrow morning, I want that you should go into town and shop."

"Shop, Levi?" Matilda leaned up on her thin elbow and scanned her brother's face in the white light of the moon. "Shop, Levi? Shop for what?"

"Why--things! Have all the help you can get and take a reasonable time, but I'd like to have you get real stylish fixings. I'd like real well for you to have a lavender frock, something like that Treadwell woman wears. You and Sandy and I are going vacationing!"

"Lands, Levi! Vacationing just as canning time is coming?"

"That's about the size of it. What's the fun in a vacation if you ain't running away from plain duty?"

"Why, Levi, I do declare! Where are we going?"

The dear old face was shining in the ghostly gleam.

"Oh! we're going to see mountains that will make Mt. Washington and Lost Mountain look foolish."

"Levi, don't trifle lightly with God's handiwork. I've always held that scenes of nature ought not be compared--it's real presumptious."

"Well, then, Matilda, we're going to do the grand tour!"

"Levi, you surely are romancing."

"I'm going to buy tickets to-morrow for about the middle of September!"

"You can't be serious, brother?"

"I am going to spend money--for _nothing_ once in my life! I'm going to get what we want and not count the change!"

"It sounds scandalous, Levi!"

"It's going to be a--scandal."

"What a sight we three will be, Levi." The dear old soul chuckled.

Like a child she had at last caught the contagion of Markham's humour.

"I just know them foreigners will think we are a pair of fond parents with our one chick and child. Do you think we need tell right out that we ain't, Levi? When it isn't necessary, couldn't we keep ourselves to ourselves and--make believe, with the ocean between us and them that know, that Sandy is ours?"

"We can, Matilda. And I want that Sandy should get his fill of paintings. Did you ever know how he leans to art? Why, he's got about a square acre of sketches among his belongings--he's shown me some, and while I do not set myself up for a critic I do say that there is feeling in his stuff."

"I've seen that dogwood one he carries about with him," Matilda answered, leaning back on her pillow. "It gives me the creeps. Times are when I fancy there is a ghost of a girl face in the flowers. Sandy laughs at me--but I've caught the sight more than once in certain lights and its real upsetting."

"Well, I want that he should take all the art in that he's capable of digesting, and I want you to see mountains and what not that you've hungered after all your days and I want to see--Paris!"